Notes From The Wellington Phoenix’s 1-1 Draw With Newcastle Jets
For the third consecutive game, the Wellington Phoenix were involved in some frantic stoppage time antics. Against Central Coast they conceded a 90+1st minute winner. Against Melbourne Victory they scored a 90+5th minute winner. Then against Newcastle Jets, in one of their most dominant attacking performances all season, which unfortunately coincided with one of their least clinical shooting nights, they had the opportunity to claim another huge three-pointer in their quest to win that Premiers’ Plate... only for captain Alex Rufer to miss a 90+6th minute penalty kick. Struck it off the outside of the post. The first letter is F, the second letter is also F, the third letter is S.
The Penalty Spot
It was a brutal outcome, especially for a player who has been amongst the best in the A-League this campaign. Rufer has scored a couple of penalties already this season, including an injury time equaliser against Melbourne Victory back in January. He’s the captain and he stepped up in that pressurised moment. Called his shot... and missed. Sometimes that happens.
The spot kick itself felt like a gift as Carl Jenkinson slapped an aerial ball away with his hand, an obvious infringement that the referee missed in real time but which was never going to escape the sight of VAR. It didn’t... but it took forever before Rufer actually got to take the kick. Poor old Jenkinson busted his shoulder upon landing. Injured whilst conceding a penalty. Guts bro (he’d been really good in this game up until that moment too). He was getting treatment while Giancarlo Italiano was pleading with the fourth official on the sideline.
The clock read: 91:43, as the ball struck Jenko’s hand. The handball was an obvious one, and the spot kick was pretty swiftly awarded, however nothing could happen until the injured player had been dealt with. Quick note of praise for Kosta Barbarouses who initially picked up the ball and stood on the spot with it – not because he was trying to take the thing but to absorb whatever distracting shenanigans might have been directed his way by the opposition and the crowd, before handing it over to Rufer when the time was right. Effectively protecting him from getting psyched out at the spot, with what would have been a very long wait.
It wasn’t until 95:11 that the whistle went for the penalty to be taken... so three and a half minutes of anticipation. But Rufer wasn’t set when the whistle blew. He still had to step out his run-up, then take a couple deep breaths, then shuffle into his kick. It all seemed to happen so slowly, then suddenly so quickly. It’s also the case that Rufer kicking mid-height to his right was uncomfortably close to his previous Welly Nix penalty miss (in an Aussie Cup shootout win vs Melbourne City two years ago – one of Alex Paulsen’s original grand announcement performances). He’s been much more successful when he’s shot low...
Woudla, coulda, shoulda. The bottom line is that he simply missed. Players do miss penalties from time to time. It’s not like there was anyone with a better resume than Rufer to take that thing. Not even Oskar Zawada. OZ is 3/4 for the Nix and 6/9 in his career from the penalty spot. Let alone the fact he’d played six minutes of football in the past six weeks. Kosta Barbarouses was having a rancid night of finishing while Ben Old is hardly a clinical converter himself and David Ball has not scored a goal all season. Oskar van Hattum? Probably not the ideal moment for that promotion. Bozhidar Kraev and Youstin Salas were off the pitch. No, these things just happen. Frankly, they had more than enough chances to have won this thing three times over before the penalty even occurred.
Premiership Ramifications
The draw does send the Wellington Phoenix back to the top of the ladder thanks to Central Coast Mariners getting flooded in on their travels. CCM were able to pick up a 1-1 draw in their AFC Cup trip to Kyrgyzstan. It was almost a win but Magamed Uzdenov equalised in stoppage time for Adbish-Ata Kant to make the second leg a little more interesting (after Brian Kaltack had scored in the 81st minute). But, yeah, rough weather meant that CCM took literal days to get back to Australia. Their weekend’s clash against Adelaide United therefore had to be postponed and it’ll reportedly now be played on the night of the Wellington Phoenix’s club prizegiving instead. Better make sure they get the big screen going for that one.
CCM already had the tiebreaker but now that doesn’t matter. They have a game in hand and just avoided having to play immediately after their Kyrgyzstan trip – which was the Welly Nix’s best hope of a slip up. But this same Newcastle Jets team can still do the Nix a favour next week in a fixture which kicks off at exactly the same time as the Phoenix host Macarthur in their final match. If CCM lose and WPX win then that’s a Phoenix minor premiership despite the game in hand (they’d be four point clear). If the Nix win and CCM also win then they’re left hoping for an Adelaide victory in the postponed game. A Central Coast draw would also still require them to drop further points, though in that case a draw vs ADL would be fine. Anything other than a Nix win vs Macarthur and two CCM defeats would be necessary. It’s not over yet. It’s getting quite unlikely. But it’s not over yet. Stranger things have happened.
Leaving It Late
Those stoppage time dramas of April are not isolated events in this Wellington Phoenix season. It’s a sign of a good team that they play to ninety minutes and beyond, a trait that’s often rewarded with those crucial result-altering late goals... although the Nix seem to invite this stuff a lot more than is comfortable. Six times they’ve scored after the ninetieth minute. Two winners and an equaliser included (remember that WSW game just before Christmas when they won 2-0 despite it being 0-0 as stoppage time began?). They’ve also conceded four times after that mark, albeit only two of those changed the outcome.
Result-Altering Late Goals In Welly Nix Games This Season:
28 October vs Perth (H) - 74th minute winner from Zawada
2 December vs Western Utd (A) - 79th minute winner from Old
23 December vs Wanderers (H) – 90+1st minute winner from Barbarouses (and a 90+4th minute Old goal just to be safe)
29 December vs Sydney FC (A) - 81st minute equaliser from Barbarouses, but still lost 3-1 due to 86th and 90+4th minute goals
14 January vs Perth (N) - 73rd minute winner from Barbarouses
19 January vs Victory (H) - 90+5th minute equaliser from Rufer (pen)
27 January vs Newcastle (A) - 87th minute winner from Zawada (after an 80th min equaliser conceded)
2 February vs Brisbane (A) - 90+4th minute equaliser conceded
6 April vs Central Coast (A) – 90+1st minute winner conceded
12 April vs Victory (H) - 90+5th minute own goal winner
More of those were good than bad so this is probably something to be proud of heading into the finals. It hasn’t been said for awhile but earlier in the campaign this Nix team were getting quite the reputation for their apparent time-wasting exploits – which is a snarky way of saying that they were very good at holding onto leads late in games. They hold leads. They can score late goals. They’re strong at the back. Those are playoff-winning attributes.
What we can also say is that they’re undefeated when they score first in matches. 13 times that’s happened amounting to 11 wins and 2 draws. On the flipside, they’ve conceded the first goal on 10 occasions and have still managed to win 3, draw 3, and only lose 4 of those matches. Chuck three goalless draws onto the fire as well. A couple of seasons ago this team was doomed whenever they allowed the first goal. This season, they’ve been able to fight back for 12 points from the ten times they’ve conceded first. Different gravy, mate.
Unnatural Dominance
Now comes a potentially counter-intuitive idea... that the Wellington Phoenix were worse in this game for dominant they played. At their best, this is a defensively sound team that can be scintillating on the counter attack. In this game, they had the opposite situation where it was they who were camped outside the penalty area trying to break down a stacked defensive unit. And even though they did more than enough to win it regardless... it exposed a few reasons why this team prefers to play that other way.
Think back to how bad these guys were at finishing their chances last season. Think on what Chiefy has done to fix those issues, by getting them into more efficient spaces to shoot from. It’s not like the Nix have suddenly become copious goal-scorers. They are ninth in the league for goals and eleventh for xG. Tenth for big chances created. Eleventh for touches in the opposition penalty area. Tenth for accurate crosses per game. There are only twelve teams. The Phoenix don’t create much... but what they do create they tend to make the most of. This Newcastle match-up was different. It was out-of-character...
64% of possession compared to a season average of 47.9%
3.84 expected goals compared to a season average of 1.49 xG/game
22 total shots compared to a season average of 11.16 shots/game
All three of those numbers were season highs. Basically, they were twice as busy as usual but half as effective. It seems they are a team that prefers to attack in moderation.
Y’know, either that or they could just be better in front of goal. Alex Rufer missed a penalty but Kosta Barbarouses was responsible for 1.96 of that xG and only baged one goal to show for it, though he did at least score that one important goal - otherwise the minor premiership dream would already be goneskees. But it was a lot more like the Kosta of last season than the bloke we’ve been used to these past few months. S’pose he was due one of these performances eventually.
Fun fact: the Nix’s 6 shots on target from 22 attempts meant they had 27.3% shot accuracy. When the Nix have been under 33.3% this season (aka one in every three shots on target), they have taken 11 points from 10 games (2W/5D/3L). Whereas when they’ve shot at 33.3% accuracy or better, regardless of how many shots that entails, they have 39 points from 16 games (12W/3D/1L). Their six worst shooting nights have all come in away performances.
Not sure if he’ll have room for it on top of all the rest, but we do have to give some more credit to Chiefy for how he switched things up at half-time. Because only 0.29 of that xG came in the opening forty-five. The Nix were equally as dominant in terms of possession but they weren’t turning it into the proper moments. Thus he subbed off two hard-tackling midfielders in Mo Al-Taay and Youstin Salas and brought on David Ball and Oskar van Hattum. OVH went out wide on the right to mimic how Ben Old was playing. Similar to what both of them did against Victory last week. Ball went up front alongside Kosta as a sort of secondary forward (until he was moved into midfield when Oskar Zawada came on).
David Ball has sorta aged into a “there’s a time and place for him” type of player. This was the time and place. Getting to operate in a free role alongside plenty of other attackers brings out the cleverness in his game. He didn’t do much in terms of end product but he was involved in plenty of build up. Meanwhile OVH found a tidy balance between getting forward whilst also keeping Tim Payne involved on the overlaps. Good solid areas leading to an absolutely comprehensive half of footy. Except that they forgot to score the goals they deserved.
The Stats from that Second Half… jeepers
The Resuscitation of Oskar Zawada
Obviously a head coach is always going to believe in his team, even when that’s in contrast to all outside expectations. If they didn’t then you wouldn’t want them as head coach. So when the Nix lost half their starting line-up and then replaced them with a couple of Aussie backups and a chunk of academy graduates and everybody, very reasonably, thought they’d be battling to avoid the wooden spoon... Giancarlo Italiano assured us that this team was going to be good so don’t worry about it. The best arrow he had in his quiver back then was the idea that they had an elite A-League import striker on the books in the form of Oskar Zawada. And he’s right. A 10+ goals per season striker is going to win you plenty of games (although quick note to say that Adam Taggart currently leads the Golden Boot ranks and he plays for Perth Glory who are dead last).
As it happens, Zawada has hardly even played outside of a bright spell at the start of the campaign. He has not played ninety minutes since the fourth match. He has not started since the seventh match. OZ’s five goals still have him as the team’s equal third-top scorer behind Kosta Barbarouses (12) and Boz Kraev (6) and tied with Ben Old. But with only 536 minutes of action he’s been less prominent than Youstin Salas who only turned up halfway through. The Nix have largely done this without their best striker.
But that best striker made a sudden and unexpected comeback against the Jets. Roaring back from injury ahead of schedule in order to make the trip to Newcastle and log cheeky cameo off the bench. Italiano spoke about capping him at about 10 minutes (which is roughly what he got including stoppages) in order to manage his return-to-play workload. Perhaps next week that’ll be 20 minutes. Then possibly a little more in the semi-finals if there aren’t any setbacks... which alas is something that would not be a surprise given his entire term has been full of setbacks.
That Jets game felt tailor-made for Zawada to pop up with a late winner, just as he did the previous time he played the Jets. Coincidentally that also off the bench after missing six games due to injury. Yet it wasn’t only the situation, it was also the way that everything the Nix were doing in that second-half, with accurate crosses and plenty of set pieces, seemed begging for a striker of his stature to bang the bloody thing into the net. If he’d played thirty minutes it’s almost a guarantee that he’d have scored. Instead he only got ten and half of that was spent waiting for a penalty to be missed... but the key thing to remember is that they weren’t rushing him back specifically for this game. They were rushing him back to build him up for finals footy when he hopefully will get those 30+ minutes to rock the show.
What difference does having Oskar Zawada make to this team? Well he’s scored 5 goals from just 7 shots on target this season (and only 20 shots overall) so yeah he’s pretty good at that one thing which the Phoenix were lacking against the Jets. He’s a clinical finisher with superb hold-up and aerial play. Even if he’s only good for a run off the bench, that could still potentially be the boost they need to go beyond simply qualifying for the semis and into winning a finals game or two (or three).
The Kiwi Prospect Goggles
By the way, you probably noticed Dane Ingham having a solid outing at right back for the Jets in this match. He even had one half decent shot near the end that he hooked wide of the near post. Useful but unspectacular from the All Whites fullback, who is entrenched as a regular starter for the Jets these days. No dramas there.
However, you may not have realised that there was also a second NZer out there for Newcastle in this game: Lachlan Bayliss. At 21 years of age, Bayliss has been bossing it in the NPL for a couple of years whilst moving up through the Central Coast Mariners academy. He left them in the offseason to join the Jets where he made his A-League debut in week one before, a month later, being sidelined through injury for more than half of the season. But he’s back now and has appeared in the past five matches with this being his first start since recovering. No goals or assists yet but you could see a slippery and exciting attacking midfielder at work in this match.
Bayliss was born and raised in Australia but last August he was called up out of the blue for the NZ U23s ahead of their Olympic qualifiers. Granted he then pulled out a week later with a minor injury and there hasn’t been an opportunity to gauge his status since. In other words, not sure if he’s a Gianni Stensness or a Joey Champness. Could be a false alarm... but watch this space just in case.
You know the drill: we’re funded by our generous supporters on Patreon and with Paid Substacks so join the whanau if you rate the yarns and reckon we’re worth some currency
There’s also Buy Me A Coffee for one-off donations, plus don’t forget to whack an ad and tell your mates about us
Keep cool but care